From jop at astro.columbia.edu  Mon Aug 12 13:37:10 2024
From: jop at astro.columbia.edu (Joe Patterson)
Date: Mon, 12 Aug 2024 13:37:10 -0400
Subject: (cba:news) stars for aug-oct
Message-ID: <0147dcc6-5abc-4e75-9f1a-5d1f9525f5f3@astro.columbia.edu>

Hi CBAers

Thanks so much for your messages of concern, and for the data you've 
continued to send despite my long silence.  My health is much better 
now, and recent retirement from duties should give me more time to 
devote to variable-star studies.

My highest-priority target is still V1674 Her.  It's 8-minute pulse 
continues apace... and since we have a CONTINUOUS record of its period 
since the first week of outburst (and even before outburst), it's UNIQUE 
among IPs.  And may teach us how to understand the 
sometimes-negative-sometimes-positive Pdot of the whole class.  Keep 
coverage until around October, and resume when it returns to the sky 
around February.

For similar reasons, DQ Her is a good target.  P=71s, so the observation 
cycle time (on-source plus dead) needs to be <~20s.  For both stars, 
it's advantageous to string together consecutive nights, which will 
improve timing accuracy.

For non-IP targets, don't forget T Pyx and IM Nor (assuming the season 
and your latitude are appropriate.  And AM CVn (for next February) and 
V1500 Cyg (for northerners right now)  we have in-progress studies which 
could complete in more good season.

I expect to be MUCH more responsive to email starting now!

joe
____________________________________________________________
Center for Backyard Astrophysics (CBA) mailing lists
https://cbastro.org/communications/mailing-lists/